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this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2026
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Linux
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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You can somewhat avoid the issue of old packages by running the testing version instead of stable, but in that case you should ensure you get security updates from unstable: https://github.com/khimaros/debian-hybrid
I used to run some systems on Debian testing and never had any issues.
Just run unstable, especially on desktop. It is just unstable in name. Debian's unstable is probably 100x more stable than some other distros stable line.
In the context of Debian, "stable" means it doesn't change often. Debian stable doesn't have major version changes within a particular release.
Unstable has major changes all the time, hence the name.
I think testing is a good middle ground. Packages are migrated from unstable to testing after ~10 days of being in unstable, if no major bugs are found.